What it Takes
by TopazGirl96
Summary: A boy, his Pokémon, and the Indigo League Championship. Told from a Charizard's point of view.


The crowd is very loud. I sit inside my Poké ball and listen to the commentator.

"And Machamp delivers a powerful blow to Sneasel… Sneasel's down, he doesn't look very good… and he's back up!"

I hear the voice of my trainer, Peter, from above me. "Sneasel, hang in there! Slash attack, now!"

But from somewhere farther away I hear another voice. I assume he is the trainer of the Machamp.

"Machamp, counter with dynamic punch!"

There's a loud swooshing sound, and I hear the commentator again: "Machamp overpowers Sneasel yet again! Sneasel's down… this might be it for him…"

Then I hear the voice of the referee. "Sneasel is unable to battle!"

The crowd roars. Peter curses quietly before saying, "Sneasel, return!"

"Now both Spencer and Peter have only one Pokémon left. What Pokémon will Peter choose now?"

I feel Peter's hand grip my Poké ball and pull me out of his pocket, where I had been listening closely to the match for the past hour. It had been very fierce, and one of the toughest matches we've ever been in. But I'd expected no less.

This is the Indigo League Championship, after all.

And if I can beat this powerful Machamp, we'll win the whole thing.

Peter holds my Poké ball close to him. "This is it, Charizard," he mutters quietly. "This is the moment we've been training so hard for. I'm counting on you."

He holds out my Poké ball for a second, allowing me to prepare for battle. I stretch my wings out, ready to escape from the Poké ball at his word. Finally, he tosses me up, and I force myself out into the bright stadium. The crowd cheers as I land heavily on the ground, making the stadium shake, and I glare at my opponent, a rather large Machamp. He flexes his four muscular arms, trying to look intimidating.

This Machamp, and his trainer, Spencer, make up the last obstacle that Peter and I have to overcome before we win the tournament. We've been working hard to achieve this goal, for a very long time. I won't lose. Peter and I have been through too much together to lose now. I remember when I first met him.

_2 Years Ago_

It is quite odd, when I think about it. One second, I'm in this hard shell, and the next, I feel this sort of energy flowing out of me and suddenly I'm not in the shell anymore. I'm in a room, and an old man is watching me closely.

"The first one to hatch," he says to himself, and picks me up, studying me. "Good, you seem to be in good health, young Charmander," he says to me.

"Who are you?" I ask. "Where am I?"

But he ignores me. "Seems in good health," he murmurs to himself. "Wonder how long it will take for the others to hatch."

I look around at my surroundings more closely. I'm in a small house, with old, ratty furniture. On the ground behind me sit two eggs. One is green with a few dots on it, the other mostly blue, with a brown, shell-like pattern on its bottom.

"Please tell me where I am," I ask of the old man.

"You're a talkative one," he chuckles back at me.

"Can't you understand me?" I yell. "I'm so confused. Let me go, will you?" I start wriggling, trying to get out of his large hands.

"Will you shut your mouth, little one?" the old man admonishes. "You're talking jibberish, you know."

And he finally sets me down. I take a few steps away from him and sit down in front of the eggs. "I am _not _talking jibberish," I mutter to myself.

But after I minute I forget to be mad. The blue egg starts wriggling, and then it glows very brightly. When the light fades, there is a Pokémon standing there, a Pokémon that I instinctively know is a Squirtle. He blinks, looking confused at the sudden brightness, like I was, and the old man snatches him up.

"Hey!" the Squirtle says. "Let me down!"

"He did that to me, too," I say. Squirtle looks down at me and smiles. "Hello there. Do you happen to know what's going on?"

"No," I sigh. "I asked the man, but he didn't understand me."

"Let me try. Hello, mister? Can you please tell us where we are?"

The old man chuckles and sets Squirtle down. "I hear you, little guy. I just don't know what you're saying."

Squirtle gives him a calculating look before going to sit by me. After a while, a Bulbasaur hatches from the green egg and undergoes the man's inspection. Then the man gets up, tells us to stay put, and leaves the house. The Bulbasaur looks distraught and confused.

"I wonder why we can understand him, and we can understand each other, but he can't understand us," says Bulbasaur.

"I don't know," I say. "This is all very odd."

But soon, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and I get used to our new lives. The old man, whose name is Barry, lives on a Pokémon farm. I get to spend all day, every day, playing with all kinds of Pokémon. Squirtle and Bulbasaur are my best friends, but I meet new friends as well. There's this Dewgong who lives in the lake and claims to have been all over the world. I lay in the sun for hours listening to his wild stories. There's a very motherly Miltank who steals tomatoes from the vegetable garden and lets me eat one every time I visit her in the shed. There's a mischievous Meowth who likes to pull pranks on Barry's beloved Snubbull and lets me help sometimes. And there's a Kadabra, who uses his psychic powers to whirl me around in the air, which is great fun.

But life on the farm isn't completely carefree.

I'm not the only Charmander on the farm. In fact, there is a group of about ten other Charmanders. There are also two other groups of Squirtles and Bulbasaurs. Every so often, Barry will put one Charmander, one Squirtle, and one Bulbasaur in a cage, and then put them in his truck and drives to God knows where. And then he'll return an hour later alone, and the Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur are never seen again.

But I try my best to ignore this and go on with my life.

One day, I'm eating my lunch, minding my business, when suddenly, a Tangela stretches out a long vine coming from his body and snatches my bowl away.

"Hey!" I shout, standing up. Tangela ignores me and starts gobbling my food. I stomp over to him, scowling. I feel anger building inside of me. "Give that back!" I growl, but he reaches out that long vine again and hits me in the stomach, knocking me on my back.

It hurts, but I get up again. Tangela has finished all of my food, and stands up lazily, smirking at me. I am so angry at this point that I feel like I'm going to burst. I don't know exactly what happens next, but suddenly I feel a kind of power building in my throat, and I open my mouth, hitting Tangela with a burst of flame.

"Ouch! Stop it! STOP IT!" Tangela cries. But I don't stop until he slumps on the ground, unconscious.

"Looks like someone just discovered their powers," says a voice behind me, and I whirl around to see Barry walking toward me. He studies me closely for a second, then picks up Tangela and walks away.

"Powers?" I murmur to myself. I head out the barn and sprint to the shed.

"Miltank? Miltank!" I call.

"Over here, sweetie," she says serenely. She's laying on a pile of hay, basking in a patch of sunlight filtering in through the window. "What seems to be the matter?"

"Do I have powers?" I ask, panting.

"Of course you do. Every Pokémon does."

Miltank then explains to me things like attacks and type advantages and evolution. I listen, enraptured, as I eat some of her tomatoes. "That sounds so exciting!" I exclaim when she's finished. I can't wait to battle!"

"You'll have to have a trainer first," Miltank says.

"A trainer?"

"Yes. A human who takes care of you and instructs you in a battle."

"So I can't do whatever I want?"

"No," Miltank says sadly. "That's the life of a Pokémon."

But I'm too excited with the prospect of battling to wait until I have a trainer. I start picking fights with other Pokémon around the farm, and we battle. At first I lose a lot, but then I get better, and I beat anyone who challenges me.

Right after lunch one day, I'm battling a Growlithe. Barry stands to the side, watching us intently. It's a very fierce battle, but I win. Barry goes up to the defeated Growlithe, and gives him some kind of medicine, then turns and faces me. "You're a fierce little one," he says to me. "One day soon you'll make some young trainer a great partner."

I'm filled with fear as he walks off. I'll have a trainer _soon? _But I love my life on the farm. I love doing whatever I want, and being able to battle without being told what to do. I walk off, slightly shocked, to have some fun with Meowth.

One sunny day I'm having a conversation with Dewgong. He's in his lake and I'm on the shore, being careful not to touch the water.

"How can you stand it?" I ask. "Water is _scary!_"

"How can you _not _love water?" Dewgong asks me, sounding very exasperated. He disappears underwater, then jumps out, doing a little flip in the air, and lands in the water with a splash. I duck out of the way of the water droplets and scowl.

Dewgong pops up in front of me, grinning, but then his eyes grow wide. "Charmander, look out behind you!" he yells.

"What?" I turn around to see Barry right behind me, wearing some kind of glove, reaching out to me. I jump up and try to run away, but he grabs me around the middle and shoves me in a cage. I scramble onto my feet and rattle the bars, trying to break free. When that doesn't work, I use my flamethrower to try and burn them, but that fails too. Barry picks up my cage and walks around the farm until we reach a murky pond, where Squirtle is swimming around with some other water Pokémon.

"Squirtle!" I yell. "Run away! Barry's going to try to catch you!"

"Oh no!" Squirtle yells, and jumps out of the water, running away as quickly as he can.

But Barry's fast. Still carrying my cage, he chases after Squirtle. He catches up after a while, and reaches out his gloved hand to grab Squirtle.

"NO!" I yell, and I stick my face through the bars and shoot a flamethrower at his hand. But the glove repels the fire, and I'm too late: Squirtle is squirming around wildly in Barry's huge hand. Barry tilts the cage on its side and tosses Squirtle through the door before slamming it shut. Squirtle is panting heavily and looking very sad.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, but he shakes his head. "You tried," he pants. "Thanks for trying to save me."

Barry catches Bulbasaur next. Bulbasaur is sleeping in a corner of the barn, so it is easy for Barry to snatch him up and toss him in the cage with me and Squirtle.

Next thing I know, our cage is on the back of Barry's truck and we're rumbling off down the road. Me and my best friends sit huddled in a corner, scared out of our wits. Twenty minutes later, we reach a very large, white building, and Barry brings us to its front door.

"Professor Oak!" Barry calls, holding our cage in one hand and banging on the door with the other. The door opens and a man with white hair and bushy eyebrows steps out. "Ah, Barry," he says. Just in time. The new trainers are due to be here in a couple hours."

Barry follows Professor Oak inside and into a small room, where he sets our cage down. Professor Oak kneels down next to the cage and smiles at us. "Now, don't be alarmed. I'm going to put you in these Poké balls—" he holds out three odd, red-and-white balls— "and you just need to relax. Don't worry, it won't hurt. Just be very still."

He opens up the door of the cage and we exit it cautiously. He seems like a nice man, but he still scares me. I stand behind Squirtle and Bulbasaur, hesitant to get any closer to him.

Suddenly, he does something that makes me trust him even less. He taps Squirtle and Bulbasaur with the Poké balls, and then it appears that they are sucked inside, and they're gone! The balls roll around for a few seconds before there are two soft dings, and I can tell that Squirtle and Bulbasaur are trapped forever.

I won't let that happen to me.

Professor Oak holds out the last Poké ball. "Stay still now, little guy," he murmurs softly, but I ignore him. I turn and run in the opposite direction. Out of the corner of my eye I see him throw the Poké ball right at me. I dive to avoid it, but it hits my tail and I suddenly feel an odd sensation. It's as if my body has been paralyzed. I couldn't move if I tried. And then I feel myself being pulled backward, into the Poké ball. I panic, trying to find a way out. I feel an odd force that is keeping me from escaping. But I fight and I fight until I escape. I lay on the floor of the laboratory, panting.

"He's a feisty little one," Oak chuckles, and he take the Poké ball and taps me and I am sucked inside again.

I escape again, and again, and again. Professor Oak keeps on trying to trap me, but I won't let him. I don't know how long it's been going on, but eventually, I collapse, utterly exhausted. Professor Oak taps the Poké ball on me and I am sucked inside, and this time I'm too weak to escape. I hear a soft ding and know I am trapped.

"Bout time," I hear Barry say. It sounds like he's far away but I know in reality he's very close to me. Being inside the Poké ball makes me feel as though I'm disconnected from the world.

"And just in time, too," Oak says. "The new trainers will be here in a few minutes."

I feel my Poké ball being picked up and carried to another room. Time elapses, and I hear a series of quiet footsteps down the neighboring hallway. "Welcome, trainers!" I hear Professor Oak say. "This way. Are you ready to choose your Pokémon?"

"Yeah!" three voices say at once.

"Here they are." I feel myself being picked up. "Come on out, now," Oak says, and the mysterious force that's holding me in the ball disappears. I jump out easily, and land in a spacious room with many complicated-looking instruments that I assume Oak uses for research.

I take a look at the three new trainers, and my eyes fall upon a young boy with serious eyes. He's looking back at me, unblinking. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I trust him.

The other trainers, not so much. There's a young girl with pigtails that keeps giggling. She looks quite stupid. And there's another boy with blonde hair that's looking between me, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur with a look of concentration. "I want Squirtle… no, Bulbasaur… no, Charmander!... actually.. wait, I think… Bulbasaur… maybe Charmander… actually, Sq-… nevermind… okay, Charmander!"

"No way!" I say. I will _not _belong to an indecisive trainer. Indecision leads to lost battles.

"Here you go," Professor Oak says to him, giving him my Poké ball.

"No!" I say again.

"Awesome!" says the boy. "Charmander, return."

But I dodge the stream of red light trying to pull me back in the Poké ball.

"_Return, _Charmander!"

Again, I dodge the red light. The boy that was looking at me earlier steps up to me and picks me up. "Stop, Billy," he says. "Charmander doesn't want to go with you."

"Huh?" Billy asks.

"Peter, I think that you should take Charmander," Professor Oak says. "He's not a very trusting Pokémon, and the fact that he seems to trust _you _says a lot."

Peter steps up to Billy and takes the Poké ball from his hand. Billy stands for a second, shocked. "No matter," he says after a minute. "I wanted Bulbasaur anyway."

So Billy got Bulbasaur and the girl got Squirtle, and I went with Peter. I never saw them again.

I never expected to enjoy my life as someone's Pokémon. But Peter is the best trainer that I could ask for. He taught me so much. He taught me how to control my anger and channel it toward my opponent during a battle. He taught me strategy, how to trick my opponents during a battle and catch them off guard. He taught me strength, especially after I'd evolved into Charizard and he wanted me to learn seismic toss.

He used me in every gym battle, even in the gyms where I had a type disadvantage, because he trusted me that much. I battled wild Pokémon for him and built up his team. He was my best friend, my coach, and when I was injured, my nurse.

_Present time_

I shake my head, focusing on the present. We've been through too much together to lose now. The referee holds up his flags. "Let the battle begin!" he announces.

"Charizard, in the air!" Peter calls to me promptly. I flap my powerful wings and soar upwards, higher, higher, until I'm above the whole stadium. I whiz by the spectators sitting in the topmost row of seats. I cut through the sky, pumping myself up for battle, feeling my anger build in my chest until I want nothing more than to smash that Machamp into a pulp. Then I soar downwards and hover close to Peter so I can hear his instructions. I snarl at the Machamp, and he growls back.

"Flamethrower, now!"

I immediately take off, straight at the Machamp, feeling the ball of fire building in my body. I make it look like I'm going to hit him straight on, but at the last second I turn sharply to the right, turn my head and blast the fire with all my strength straight into Machamp's chest. He's too stunned to dodge.

"Awesome, Charizard!" Peter calls.

I zoom around and around the arena quickly so that Machamp can barely see me. Peter and I had been working on this strategy for a long time.

"Slash, now!" Peter calls, and I fly right at Machamp again.

"Dodge it!" Spencer yells, and Machamp jumps out of the way, but I turn in midair, fly at him again, and slash one of his arms. He howls in pain, and I fly away again.

"Shake it off, Machamp!" Spencer yells. "Cross chop, now!"

Machamp is fast. He charges at me quicker than I anticipate. I try to fly upward to avoid him, but he grabs my foot.

"Use submission!"

Suddenly I feel myself being tackled to the ground. I land hard on my back, and Machamp jumps on top of me, rolling me around the arena. I finally manage to kick him off of me, and I stand up, but my back hurts a lot.

"Can you fly, Charizard?" Peter yells. I respond by flapping my wings, slowly rising into the air, when Machamp catches me off guard, hitting me in the chest with a cross chop attack. I fall on my back again and groan in pain.

Bur I won't give up. My chest hurting, my back screaming in pain, I get on my feet and flap my wings as hard as I can. I rise into the air and look down at Machamp with disdain. I feel the anger building up in my chest again and the pain slowly melts away.

I want to win.

"Flamethrower!" Peter calls, and I blast Machamp with a stream of fire.

"Let's finish this! Seismic toss!"

Still hitting Machamp with my flamethrower, I soar down to him and grab him roughly, letting my claws dig into his skin. Using all of my strength, I pull him upwards, high into the air, and then spin, gaining momentum. Then, I point myself toward the ground and start falling quickly. When we're almost to the ground, I slam Machamp down, pull up, and soar away.

"Machamp is down!" I hear the commentator say. The crowd roars in response.

I hover in the air, watching Machamp intently. He's very weak, but he still stands up, looking as determined as ever.

"Charizard, we need to end this, now," Peter says. "I need you to hit Machamp with a fire blast."

I'm tired. My back hurts so bad, it almost brings tears to my eyes. My chest is still throbbing from Machamp's cross chop. But I obey Peter, drawing all of my remaining strength inwards, feeling power build in my chest until I feel like I'm going to explode. I make eye contact with Machamp. He's covered in dirt and debris, a long scratch mark on one of his arms. But he still glares at me, silently telling me he won't give up.

And then I open my mouth wide and send the most powerful blast of fire I can muster right into his chest. He's knocked backwards, and lands on his back, hard. His eyes lose their anger, and he remains on the ground, knocked out.

"Machamp is unable to battle," the referee announces. "Charizard is the winner. And that means that Peter is the new champion of the Indigo League!"

The crowd's noise shakes the stadium. I land on the ground heavily, hardly able to believe that we did it. Peter rushes to me, tears of joy in his eyes, and hugs me.

"We did it! We did it!" he says, over and over.

Someone snaps a photo of the two of us after the award ceremony, Peter sitting on my back, raising the trophy high over his head, while I shoot a flamethrower into the sky. The picture sits framed, on the wall of Peter's house. We leave it behind as we travel together on our next journey. We're on our way to conquering a new League.

**Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you think! **


End file.
